The walls had been built up years and seasons before – perfected, intricate designs with glistening spirals and ruffian smiles, growing blossoms and roots, settling in front of her features so when she frowned, there was a grin, and when she grew afraid, there was bravery notched into her brow, and when she tried to escape, her legs stood solid, staunch, and stalwart. She’d always been guarded, safe, secure, delving into portions and avenues where she couldn’t be hurt, where the air was still and the harmony was delightful, and nothing, no one, found old wounds. While they walked, while she stared at hedges and greenery, the same ramparts were bright, luminescent bulbs, and herself a shroud, a veil, of too many truths and too many lies, buried and burrowed down into her soul, partially hoping he’d cease the chase (tired of her, as everyone else had been, the girl who gave nothing away but benedictions and virtues, wisdom and sagacity), and partially hoping he’d stay, keep listening to her crushed heart and broken ambitions. Her eyes lifted again, beyond the heady, verdant embraces, the crushed leaves, the snapped twigs, Imogen’s curling, fanning tails, startled to find his gaze on her frame again, incapable of understanding why he stayed, why he cared, when the world had always told her she didn’t matter. Was that why she feared him – because he didn’t give in to her ploys, to her tricks, to her duplicity, and she was left with no alternative but to face the woes of reality, the sickening plunge of heartache? Was that why she feared this place – because she thought he’d eventually trap her here, between corners and vines, and make her give in to his queries, to his questions, to his curiosity? Eventually, he’d find her sculpture, her figure, her soul lacking, and leave, in a fold of silence, on an air of repose and disquiet, and she’d be alone again. The Songbird had memorized those laments, requiems, and dirges long before she’d even known the twinkle of stars and the strength of galaxies. She’d heard the strains in a bed of wildflowers, in a desolate forest, and trapped behind a catacomb of mirrors; sometimes it angered her, sometimes it conquered her, and sometimes, she simply gave in to the pain of never being enough for anyone or anything. It would be another continuation of the same motif when his constellations had seen the little things she truly was, and subsequently shuffled away, disappointed in her inabilities, in her transgressions, in her character.
 
But his words still held her in place, even while they were wandering, revered and raptured by the depths of them, by the rattle, by the tones. He said she shouldn’t fear him, he was not another, and the guilt flooded to her cheeks – she looked away, down at her feet, at the forest floor, at the labyrinth runes. She was ashamed to have judged him already, to have presumed he’d be one more beast who glanced at her and saw nothing of use, of interest, of appeal, but her life had been filled with these monsters and fiends, infidels and pariahs, family and friends. Some she cherished, some she never saw again, some who avoided her singsong wares and her tender face. “Why?” The nymph asked in the cover of shadow, beneath a bough lingering close to her cheeks, ducking beneath its hothouse blooms, and queried the notion again after it brushed through her mane, her forelock, her horn. “Why shouldn’t I fear you?”
 
Then she turned back, staring out at the endless abyss, wondering how far they’d go before they were both hopelessly lost (she already much more than him, she presumed), before the desire to flee instead of stay pounded against her temple, made her limbs quake, shudder, and escape back into comforts and delusions instead of the cold, hard reality staring straight back at her. Still, as they roamed, she could almost hear him thinking, conspiring, and her heart ached with a sensation of dread, fearing the incoming storm, where he’d cut his losses and she’d be without the stars behind her eyes or the heavens swirling past her chest. Instead, as his words chased after hers, as they tangled with the undergrowth and the shell she’d become, the Mender had to give a great pause, a sweltering breath. So what exactly are you afraid of? “Many things,” she smiled, demure, shrinking into the light and shadow, but knowing full well he wouldn’t stop there; perhaps he’d press and press until she folded or fell apart, leave her raw and open with the aches, with the pains, centuries old and worn, rubbled, ruined, despondent and wicked. But her words ran on again, because he listened, and if one day he ran his sword through her chest because he knew her faults, her weaknesses, those blasted imperfections, then she only had herself to blame (and it usually rested across her shoulders anyway, so what would be so different?). “Sometimes I’m afraid of being abandoned.” The fairy had been all throughout her life, one after the other, sprinkling all of her hopes and dreams on taffeta, on lace, on strings, watching them fray and fall apart and being incapable of tying them back together. “Sometimes I’m afraid of being useless.” She felt him stop but she just kept going, a sapling, a bloom, outstretching and looking for the sun. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m not good enough.”
 
Her eyes turned to his again, amber and honeyed, lost and bewildered, searching endlessly for a seraphic blessing out in the middle of nowhere. She broke her habit of pondering eternally in silence, in fabrication, in holy attributes and rites; for if he was permitted to delve into her figure, into her essence, then she had every right to do the same – and neither felt cruel, vehement, or malicious. It was just and fair, protective and furtive, a weaving of her cloak and daggers all over again. He’d taken lead, but she could campaign too. “What are you afraid of?” I could chase it away, if you let me.